On literary cross-dressing
When Carmen Mola won Spain’s Planeta literary prize for her crime thriller, The Beast, it was widely assumed that she was a female professor with a hardboiled literary style. Think again, mis amigas. Mola was the pseudonymous literary creation of three men: Jorge Diaz, Antonio Mercero and Agustin Martinez. The three scriptwriters smirkingly accepted the million-euro prize at a ceremony in October, and the literary world, home of uppity puritans and shrill wokesters, immediately found itself enmeshed in a scandal highlighting issues relating to authenticity and authorial freedom.
